It isn't news that some Catholics opposed an anti-gay-marriage DVD sent by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. But after the editorial board at Benilde-St. Margaret's student paper, the Knight-Errant, criticized the archdiocese, school administration pulled the editorial from the paper's website. For good measure, school leaders also pulled an op-ed by a staffer who had just come out of the closet.
The administration cited Catholic teachings and a "disrespectful environment" for the move.
I'll have an interview with editorial board member Bernardo Vigil in my next post, but since the editorial no longer lives on the web, I'm republishing it in its entirety. Below that is a link to the op-ed, and the school's just-issued statement.
I'm not a Catholic, and I'm pro-gay-marriage, so you may want to factor that in when I say both student pieces are exceptionally well-written. If you want to have a little faith in the next generation's talent and guts, read on…
Here's the editorial:
Staff finds DVD unsubstantiated
The Catholic Church has been a long-standing opponent of gay marriage both in civil law and the Church itself. In keeping with this teaching, Archbishop Nienstedt produced and mailed a DVD in which he explicitly endorses an amendment to our state constitution that would bar homosexuals from the right to marry under civil law.
We as a staff believe the Church has both the right to have a teaching on this issue and to deny homosexuals the right to get married within the Church itself. However, we also feel that the DVD many of our families received is inappropriate due to the civil nature of the issue, and the content is nothing more than simple, emotional propaganda.
Archbishop Nienstedt states in the DVD that gay marriage poses a threat not only to the children taken out of the foster care system and adopted by married gay couples, but to children everywhere. He warns us that if we were to legalize gay marriage, the government would start teaching children in public schools that gay marriage is okay — something that is not consistent with Catholic teachings. The DVD further equates the effects of growing up in a household with two moms or two dads to growing up in a polygamous household, or an impoverished, financially struggling, single parent home.
The DVD tells us that the legalization of same-sex marriage will result in a world that no longer cares about a one-man one-woman vision of marriage, which will in turn result in a society that is, “callous and indifferent to the suffering it imposes on its own children, and on women who are left to carry the burden of parenting, and on men who are fundamentally dehumanized.”
How gay marriage results in heterosexual divorce and poverty, the DVD fails to address. How gay marriage leads to the acceptance of polygamy, the DVD makes no mention of either.
In the end, the DVD simply tries to equate gay marriage (an institution that would actually bring families together through the adoption of children) to broken homes and polygamy, without providing any facts to back it up. And, while the struggles of raising a child without a mother or father as support are certainly real, this stems from the fact that single parents are doing the job of two people and is not a reason to deny homosexuals the right to marry under civil law.
The DVD also aimed to reject the notion that the issue of gay marriage is an issue of civil rights. They did this in the most subtle way imaginable: by having a black man quote Martin Luther King Jr. The quote in question was from “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” and stated that for a law to be just it must be in line with natural law.
What the speaker fails to address is the very next line of the letter that states, “Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statues are unjust because segregation distorts the soul.” Clearly this omitted line proves that MLK would not have supported discriminatory policies against any group, including homosexuals. The fact that the Church would go as far as to evoke MLK in an issue, which he clearly wouldn’t have supported, speaks volumes to the argument which the DVD presents…
Read complete report:
Catholic school paper deletes student editorials on Catholic DVD, gay teens
November 16, 2010 - Minnesota Public Radio
St. Louis Park, Minn. — A student newspaper at a suburban Catholic school has sparked a debate over free speech by criticizing a Catholic DVD and defending gay teens. The DVD denouncing same-sex marriage was sent by Minnesota's Catholic bishops to parishioners prior to the Nov. 2 election.
The student newspaper of Benilde-St. Margaret's in St. Louis Park deleted two student editorials over the weekend and shut off the online comments.
The Knight Errant student newspaper published a news story last Thursday about the bishops' "Preserving Marriage in Minnesota" DVD.
But it was the two editorials that accompanied it -- and the online comments they inspired -- that created the uproar. One staff editorial challenged the bishops' arguments against same-sex marriage and called the DVD "unsubstantiated."
Read complete article:
400,000 Anti-gay marriage DVDs - $1 million Nienstedt - Minnesota October 29, 2010 - RELIGION & ETHICS PBS – video (NP)
July 2010
President of the United States
United States Congress
United States Supreme Court
50 United States Governors
Dear -- --------,
My name is Fr. Marty Kurylowicz, a Roman Catholic priest from the Diocese of Grand Rapids Michigan ordained June 16, 1979.
In March 1997, after attending a National Symposium of the New Ways Ministry that was held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I learned that children as young as 4 and 5 years of age know that they are different. This feeling "different" is only identified in their adult years as being gay. However, the harmful influence of antigay social and religious norms -- in particular, for Catholics, the Vatican’s unsubstantiated antigay teachings -- are severe and last throughout a child’s lifetime. The harmful effects are not isolated only to these children who grow up to be gay, but also affect their families, siblings, friends and anyone whom they might consider special in their lives. They are a prescribed societal sentence of implicit isolation, which place at risk of suicide so many innocent adolescents and young adults. They stifle an enormous amount of human potential in the world that otherwise could be put to use for finding cures for diseases, offering better ways of maintaining peace among people and improving the quality of life for everyone in the world.
Gay Marriage - “SEPARATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE” Does Not Give Churches Or Benedict XVI - The Freedom To Abuse Children or Adults. July 2010 - By Fr. Marty Kurylowicz http://fathermartykurylowicz.blogspot.com/2010/09/gay-marriage-separation-between-church.html
Roman Catholic - hierarchy child sexual abuse
“cover-ups”
ordered by Benedict XVI
to avoid public outrage & criminal charges
- falsely accused gay priests - WATERGATE?
No “Checks and Balances”
A major problem with the hierarchical structure of the Roman Catholic Church is that there are no “checks and balances.” When the necessary “checks and balances” are not in place to protect any organization, it leaves “not making waves” the rule that governs the hierarchy and opens the way to many devastating mistakes harmful to everyone and allows corruption to grow.
The following statements are harsh statements, but unfortunately they are heavily documented. (1) Benedict XVI and his hierarchy failed to protect children from child sexual abuse for decades. (2) They mistreated and intimidated the victims and their families who came to report the child sexual abuse, in order to cover up publicity of any child sexual abuse. (3) They failed to protect children by repeatedly reassigning the child sexual abusers to assignments where children would be present. (4) When the hierarchy’s criminal negligence failing to protect children became public, globally, in 2002 they shifted the blame wrongfully onto gay priests.
Read complete report:
Child Protection Service of the Archdiocese of Dublin http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Pages/PB09000504
(5) By falsely, against known research to the contrary, blaming gay priests they implicated the entire LGBT community and how they are fighting against Marriage Equality. When the scientific facts known for decades about human sexuality have been discounted with no substantiated facts given to explain why, it causes many questions whether Benedict XVI and the hierarchy’s fight against Marriage Equality is more a fight to maintained the cover-up of the hierarchy’s criminal negligence failing to protect children? Benedict XVI and his hierarchy need to clearly offer substantiated reasons why they are against Marriage Equality. This statement needs to be spelled out in great detail and follow Pope John Paul II’s test of truth of not separating science and religion. (6) Benedict XVI and the hierarchy’s continuous public propaganda against homosexuality encourages public intolerance towards LGBTQ&I adults and children. They continue to do this even though this summer 2 major Christian denominations approved LGBT singled and partnered people for all forms of ordained ministries. (7) Benedict XVI and the hierarchy’s continuous promulgation of the Vatican’s unsubstantiated antigay teachings that are harmful to children in their early childhood psychological developmental years, harm that is crippling throughout their lives. They have continued this even after the beginning of the year, 2009, the Family Acceptance Project research studies had shown the negative effects caused to youths, when their sexual orientation is not accepted, having health problems, suicidal ideation, etc. They ignore all the major medical, psychiatric, psychological and social workers national and international professional associations regarding their findings regarding human sexuality and sexual orientation. WHEN DO WE START PROTECTING CHILDREN?!?!
Written by Fr. Marty Kurylowicz
Unsubstantiated] --- RELIGIOUS BELIEFS that gay and lesbian relationships are SINFUL or INFERIOR to heterosexual relationships
HARM gays and lesbians.
Judge Vaughn Walker Ruling
California Prop 8. August 4, 2010
On Prop 8, it's the evidence, stupid
By Lisa Bloom
CNN.com
and related links:
UNIDENTIFIED - Internalized Homophobia – Devastating, and Horrific Consequences On Innocent Children - PERPETUATING GENERATIONS HATRED & VIOLENCE ---
Hate Crime Bill vs Attacks
But
No Facts -> Fear And Ignorance = LUKEWARM
Of The Blind Leading The Blind
October 27, 2009
Fr. Marty Kurylowicz
Thalamus Center
The bible in fact does not condemn Galileo or homosexuality, which science reveals that are normal elements of nature and human sexuality.
People for whatever reason seem to be using the bible to hide from their own personal sexual issues. This is a sacrilege! It is a total disrespect for the bible to be used to hide and harm innocent people, most especially children. These people do not check out the facts about the bible and science on homosexuality, because in truth they do not want to know the truth.
Even in discourse with people who believe that homosexuality is evil because they say the bible states it to be, as with Galileo, they are not interested in a discussion, they do not want to hear the truth. They only want to discredit the truth, in every conceivable way, by whatever means available to them. They are likely doing what they have been doing all their lives regarding their personal fears about the truth of their sexuality. There is nothing to be gain to be in discourse with such people. In fact, they should be avoided, because they are harmful. Because no matter what they say or how violently they say it, it will not cause the sun to revolve around the earth or for homosexuality to be evil. Photo NASA
ATTACKS and absolutely no FACTS
from the bible or science
It is a waste of time for you and for them, besides being seriously harmed by their "unchecked meanness" towards others. If and when they do their homework and truly study both the bible and the science regarding homosexuality and human sexuality then there could be a productive discourse. Otherwise, there are no discussions with them; only continuous personal attacks on the person who opposes them that are fierce, cruel and hurtful. Likely, in the way they treat themselves, which may have started when they were treated in such fashion, in their past.
Even Jesus advised leaving them because, as he said, "they are the blind leading the blind" Matthew 15:14. And it is these people who are worried that their freedom of speech will be curtailed, by the new additions to the Hate-Crime Bill. It is only their ability to remain in darkness that is being curtailed, which is greatly more fearful to them, than their concerns about their freedom of speech. They have attacks but absolutely no facts, all motivated by fear and a self-imposed ignorance of the facts. This is the same for Benedict XVI and his hierarchy you never hear any stated facts regarding human sexuality. None!!! They offer absolutely "no" discussion or classes on the topic of human sexuality. None!!! They offer no detailed documentation regarding human sexuality from the bible or science. None!!! Because they know only too well that it would not be approved by scripture scholars or by any scientific studies. Where is the truth, not to mention the LOVE? Photo
Their attacks are likely meant to be distractions to stay off the issue, because any attempts to keep them on the issue are met with fiercer and even more vicious attacks, but no facts, like an obsession. They seem to be like a child throwing a hysterical tantrum, however, unlike a child, they are able to cause serious harm to innocent people. It is this violence that the Hate-Crime Bill is designed to protect people from.
It is the intensity of their forcefulness to attack others without any substantiated facts to support their position that draws public attention to question their sexuality. It is like so many public figures who so forcefully have spoken out against homosexuality and then are found in "public restrooms" engaging in homosexual acts. Today, not only are more people "coming out" of the "closet" but there is an enormous ever growing number of Allies supporting LGBT people and their civil rights. It is the continuous education on human sexuality that keeps this number growing strong. However, it is also becoming more noticeable when someone protest too much against homosexuals with the absence of factural data to support the protesting that catches peoples attention and causes people to wonder, why? What causes this person to protest so strongly, because no valid facts are given?
What should be top priority is the life harm that is caused to children, who grow up LGBT and sadly it is not even considered of any importance. The Bible is about Love the purest form of Love known. The Bible is not about permission to hate, to remain blind or to harm people, especially very young children.
Related links:
St. Louis Park Catholic school pulls op-ed on gay issues from website
by Mila Koumpilova,
November 16, 2010 – Twin Cities. com – Pioneer Press
Senior Sean Simonson didn't foresee the stir his account of life as a gay teen would cause: dozens of occasionally sharply worded online comments and a debate over how his school handled a sensitive, high-profile topic.
Administrators at Benilde-St. Margaret's, a Catholic school in St. Louis Park, removed Simonson's piece and a staff editorial dealing with homosexuality from the student newspaper website Friday. They said online comments the writings triggered were creating an unsafe environment for gay students.
After initial cries of censorship, student journalists said Monday that the school's reaction was well-intentioned. Still, they decried the decision to halt the online debate. They said they felt officials had caved in to calls from online commentators to remove the pieces, which some found offensive.
"I feel that by complying with those requests, our administration is implying solidarity with them, which is more damaging than allowing the debate to continue," said senior Bernardo Vigil, one of the editors at the student newspaper, the Knight Errant.
In its Thursday print edition, the paper published a story about a DVD the Minnesota Catholic Conference distributed in September, which called for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in the state. Along with the article ran a staff editorial critical of the DVD and Simonson's piece, in which he shared that the pressures of growing up as a gay youth had driven him to ponder suicide…
Read complete report:
For gay teens who have considered suicide,
By Sean Simonson
November 16, 2010 – Minnesota Public Radio
Editor's note: The following article first appeared last week in the Knight Errant, the student newspaper at Benilde-St. Margaret's School, but was deleted over the weekend by the school's administration.
…Don't believe being different is difficult? Try going through a day in the life of a gay teen.
You fear looking the wrong way in the locker room and offending someone. Politicians are allowed to debate your right to marry the person you love or your right to be protected from hate crimes under the law. Your faith preaches your exclusion -- or damnation. And no one does anything to stop it.
Recently, the Archbishop used money donated by an anonymous source to denounce same-sex marriage. That's right: a major religious leader used non-Church money from a questionable source to publicly condemn your right to express your love in a public and binding manner.
A public school district nearby -- after a wake of suicides by kids much like yourself -- cannot bring itself to put your protection from bullying into its policies. Members of the district fear your kind and how you might brainwash their children into thinking that your behavior is appropriate or to join your kind.
A political party makes its position denying your right to marry one of its main voting points. And your nation voted this party in office.
You cannot legally give blood to save a life, nor risk your life to defend your country unless you hide your identity and deny who you are…
Read complete report:
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/11/16/simonson/
Pope: Internet Has 'Numbed' Young People
by Bianca Bosker,
November 15, 2010 – Huffington Post
The Vatican has had a mixed relationship with the Web.
Last year, executives from Google, Wikipedia, and Facebook coached Catholic bishops about Internet culture. Pope Benedict XVI also launched a YouTube channel, has encouraged priests to blog, and has told young Catholics to use the Internet to share their faith…
"A large number of young people... establish forms of communication that to do not increase humaneness but instead risk increasing a sense of solitude and disorientation," Benedict also said, according to the AFP.
Read complete report:
Pope Benedict XVI Says the Internet Is Turning Us Into Disoriented Trolls
November 15, 2010 – Switched
Benedict XVI's CONTROL - INEFFECTIVE - Not able to silence, sabotage, attack Catholic voices on Internet | Benedict XVI & Bishops Child Sexual Abuse COVER-UPS | Facts On Human Sexuality | Truth - Justice
400,000 Anti-gay marriage DVDs - $1 million Nienstedt “Minnesota Bishops on Gay Marriage” October 29, 2010 - RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY PBS – video (NP)
SEXUAL ORIENTATION is less about sex and more about LOVE, being one with another human being - ATTACHMENT THEORY | - INTERNALIZED HOMOPHOBIA - “Auschwitz – Benedict XVI - Christmas 2008 - Brokeback Mountain” (NP)
“Crimes Against Humanity” BENEDICT XVI & BISHOPS - Child Sexual Abuse COVER-UPS | “Clergy Abuse Victims Rally At Vatican” - by Sylvia Poggioli, November 1, 2010 – National Public Radio NPR (NP)
[Unsubstantiated] ---
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS that gay and lesbian relationships
are SINFUL or INFERIOR to heterosexual relationships
HARM gays and lesbians.
Judge Vaughn Walker Ruling
California Prop 8. August 4, 2010
Gay Marriage - “SEPARATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE” Does Not Give Churches Or Benedict XVI - The Freedom To Abuse Children or Adults. July 2010 - By Fr. Marty Kurylowicz http://fathermartykurylowicz.blogspot.com/2010/09/gay-marriage-separation-between-church.html
Gay Marriage & Galileo:
Pope described as …"so averse to anything intellectual that everyone has to play dense and ignorant to gain his favor"
The Trial of Galileo - by Douglas O. Linder (2002)
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-KANSAS CITY (UMKC) SCHOOL OF LAW
Threats, Silence, Harm and Disposal of Catholic Personnel Supportive of LGBT Adults and Children - Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s Directives To Hierarchy
By Fr. Marty Kurylowicz
Pontifical Academy of Sciences ...had direct discussions with John Paul but” – not with Benedict XVI … refuses to discuss controversial topics such as contraception… November 5, 2010 – FoxNews.com
Sexual orientation - Internalized Homophobia -
“Auschwitz – Benedict XVI - Christmas 2008 -A flashback far more severe than in Brokeback Mountain”
GAY TEENAGE SUICIDE - Fr. Marty Kurylowicz
Nothing in life is more precious than the intimate relationships we have with love ones. Healthy love relationships delight us give us confidence to take on challenges and support us in difficult times. Photo
Gay marriage -> Restoring
"Hope of Love"
To Children In Early Childhood -> Marriage Equality
March 23, 2010 – by Fr. Marty Kurylowicz
Marriage Equality, like Galileo, is the truth about the facts of growing up gay. Marriage Equality will not become a reality until people learn that its most vital purpose is that it restores the “hope of love” to children in early childhood – essential to their development and well-being for life. Without Marriage Equality we teach children how to hate love and how to be mean and indifferent to people as adults. With all due respect, without Marriage Equality we would teach them in much the same way as has been shown by Benedict XVI and the hierarchy, especially in their lack of care and protection of children for decades.
Galileo
Biblical quotes used to Condemn Galileo
Ecclesiastes 1:5 (New International Version)
5 The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.
Ecclesiastes 1:5 (New American Standard Bible)
5 Also, the sun rises and the sun sets; And hastening to its place it rises there again.
1 Chronicles 16:30 (New International Version)
30 Tremble before him, all the earth!
The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved.
1 Chronicles 16:30 (New American Standard Bible)
30 Tremble before Him, all the earth; Indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved.
Psalm 93:1 (New International Version)
1 The LORD reigns, he is robed in majesty;
the LORD is robed in majesty
and is armed with strength. The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved.
Psalm 93:1 (New American Standard Bible)
1 The LORD reigns, He is clothed with majesty; The LORD has clothed and girded Himself with strength; Indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved.
Psalm 96:10 (New International Version)
10 Say among the nations, "The LORD reigns."
The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved;
he will judge the peoples with equity.
Psalm 96:10 (New American Standard Bible)
10 Say among the nations, "The LORD reigns; Indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved; He will judge the peoples with equity."
Psalm 104:5 (New International Version)
5 He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.
Psalm 104:5 (New American Standard Bible)
5 He established the earth upon its foundations, So that it will not totter forever and ever.
Read more:
“Someday,
maybe, there will exist a well-informed, well considered and yet fervent public conviction that the most deadly of
all possible sins is the mutilation of a child’s spirit.”
…whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. Photo
Matthew 18:6
Protect children and the entire world will be safe.
Important note: No disrespect meant to Pope Benedict XVI or the hierarchy, the one and only concern is the safety and well-being of children.
Kids Are Being Hurt!!!
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